Can’t seem to Rest.

God is light in him there is no darkness. God revealed to me today that I had yet another systematic approach to seeking him that I needed to die to. My reasoning was this, If I deny the world for long enough, God will eventually give me the status I want in this life because then I will have the right motives to handle that status. It was awesome to see God open up a new part of my heart that I didn’t know needed working on as I was praying. When that thought came into my head I knew it was something God was working on in my heart.
I am taking today mostly off to seek God. Also known as a day of rest aka sabbath. It is mostly off.
I claim to have fellowship with God and continually ask him if I still walk in darkness.
In this segment of my day I am writing to encourage the saints and those seeking.
The more I am seeking the more I am finding that the bible tells us what God has done and is not about great people in history that have done something for God.
Taking more of the opportunities given to me to talk to people.
God gives us responsibilities to finish, not just to start.
“Rest for your soul does not come after the economic crisis is over, after the dollar turns around, or after your support is raised, rest for your soul can be given to you by Jesus… at anytime. He is not limited by any of our circumstances. His rest is never in short supply. He never runs out. It is not a false, temporary rest like a weekend off, then by Tuesday you are slammed again. It is a rest that can find its way into the deepest fears and worries of your soul. His rest is not simply for the shallow places. His rest can invade the hardest struggles and heaviest burdens. His rest does not arrive after the fact, but can be experienced right in the midst of it all.”

Revelation 1

For the believer whom knows and acts as though the time is near is wise. For the believer whom does not care that the time is near will not act accordingly. The time is now to do what has been said to you.

My first thoughts when two competitions came across my mind is that I could have two free cameras soon and if by chance I won I would have a lot of money. Well “by chance” is not how God works and if I am not allowed to win or to even enter then praise God for teaching me to test my motives, thoughts and responses.
“If you claim to be without sin you deceive yourself, and the truth is not in you.” Well believe there are areas of our hearts that we don’t know contain walls, locks that hide away pride or unbelief. IF you don’t think you have them then you have not asked God to reveal them. If he hasn’t revealed them then I would encourage you to sit longer next time you are listening being open for his answer and work.
The light is bright and in chaos God still is working.

Designated Suffering

I just came across Hebrews 5:8-9. This just leveled me.

Although Jesus was a  son (God’s), he learned obedience from he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

I run from the suffering I don’t want. I run from it trying everything I can to fix it or just not deal with it. I even curse my suffering in my mind, indirectly in my words and creatively in my works.

God however, even taught his own physical son through the suffering in his life. What did he teach Jesus? Obedience. The ability of discernment and recognition of God’s voice. I want that but show mercy on me lord. Through that suffering which Jesus did endure and ultimately died from, Jesus was made perfect.

So in my suffering, should I long for something else I can compare myself to or run? No. I should consider every trial in the will of God from which he allowed and from which he will deliver me if it glorifies him. Each trial can teach me to be more like Christ. How stubborn I am when faced with the work of the perfection my spirit desires to become.

The Hub

It is hard to understand but a continental shift in faith is occurring in my life. The form of it can not be presented in well crafted words or works and revolves around the same words I have been reading in my life for as long as I have been able to read. The shift isn’t measured in locational standards or by distance of thought but by a centering of existence in and around Jesus.

When the early church was teaching about Jesus, I have just read/researched, they taught about what Jesus did more than his teaching. What he did for us by dieing on the cross.
Using the common sunday school model of a wheel spoke; the center hub being Jesus and the spokes being various parts of life, I now see that instead of being with jesus in the center, my life is lived accordingly hanging on along the outside wheel. When opportunity approached, aka a spoke, for example a film, I, with the film am outside of Jesus, looking at Jesus, looking at where Jesus is, from me and the film’s perspective. I can not say that I have changed until Jesus reveals to me that he has changed me.

Jesus Centered faith is walking with Jesus, next to Jesus, focusing on what God has done for us and not what we are doing for God. I prayed a few weeks ago that I would stop hiding Jesus in God, stop hiding my faith in Jesus by just telling those I was ministering about God in my life without mentioning Jesus.

A lifetime of recalling what one person did for God will never equal a lifetime pointing to the one thing Jesus did for us.

If you support a missionary please don’t gauge whether or not to give to them or to continue giving to them by the number of people that have been saved because of their ministry.

Not sure why I’m even writing this

I am empty and I don’t know what to do. Ask Jesus to reveal himself to you and listen.  Be active in waiting for the Lord to work. He will work.

I am beginning to put together my entries for the World Press Photo competition. I think I will submit my pro life story, some type of detroit story, maybe a china story, and ukraine.

As one who seeks Jesus, I began believing that I knew that I knew what my motives were in areas such as serving others, loving, living, photographing, etc. I told myself that I was doing it for Jesus. Prompted by the spirit I had a revelation yesterday and that belief changed as I read scripture.

Obedience to God is not found in yourself, aka, your ideas. This is why the Spirit of God leads us to put to death the deeds of the rebellious flesh (Rom. 8:13, 14; Gal. 5:16,24). Sooo, I will never know what my motives are when I try and justify my actions by my own understanding.  So deep are the shallow roots of man’s attempt to follow God. A list  containing all things that separate us from God and one list of all this that God approves, if memorized and practiced still will not make us pure. . That we shouldn’t do will never be able Man’s best attempt is not enough, even if the motives seem pure.

God is the one who makes the motives pure and is the only one who knows my heart. Although at times my heart can cry out and make me feel that it’s feelings are so real, so true, so guiding that all I can do is follow it to find the fulfillment it searches for. Even up to yesterday, I knew that I was trying to serve the Lord with a clean heart, believing with a dangerous subtle notion that my motives were pure. That is still too bold, I believed that my motives didn’t need to be checked.

‘The flesh nature is hostile to God and will not subject itself to the law of God’. (Rom. 8:7).  Can I determine what is and isn’t a pure motive in my heart. What Pride! Either all is pure or all is not. The truth is found in which is leading my life; the Spirit or the Flesh. I will never know the motives of my life but I will submit myself to the knowledge of God I own, bowing all of me to let the Spirit guide.  The all that we feel we need to know, (financial questions, health questions, love, etc), we don’t need to know.

Belief in Jesus the most powerful opportunity we have. But the devil believes in Jesus too! And he is scared. In Christ, where all can stand by God’s strength, can we find true life. My prayer for you is the same as it is for me, that Jesus reveals himself and that in words, attitude, reaction and response may the fullness of Christ be the only reflection of life in mine.

I have had a few people lately say that it is so “easy” for me specifically to be a christian. I don’t know what that means. As you just referenced in your mind that I am on the outside of what you are going through then I ask you what you think the inside is and how it differs from the outside. Experience?

Know that You are awesome! And so complete in God! Now  it seems as though you are searching for more of something to fill your down time. Prayer isn’t enough, God isn’t enough. I say that is because you search and pray on your own strength. God never hides and doesn’t go anywhere in relation to where we are. You have defined your needs as more social life or more whatever. I feel the same way too when focused on myself, but my impatience is with my job and what I am doing to be a better photographer/filmmaker. I never feel what I am doing is enough. I dont think you actually want me to go on as I do, encouraging you in what I believe is the truth, but here the words are free and your time is limited.

I pray that joy and contemptuous gratitude come to you through jesus. a small story, my friend Andrew Jump always countered my selfish thoughts with scripture, and i didn’t like it. but it was because my heart was hard and in subtle rebellion, I was seeking for my own way to follow god. Then he hit me with a proverb…Притчи 1:5..Хай послухає мудрий і примножить науку, а розумний здобуде хай мудрих думок.
[12/7/09 12:50:46 AM] Stephen McGee: have a good time.

Un-according to Plan; God’s Work

Pray for this man who just emailed me and know the He who began a good works in you will complete those works. Meaning God is moving in your ministry while you believe it or not.

…I just visited your site and I am touched by your love and faith for Christ.  Recently and over a period of several years, my family and I have gone through some pretty amazing trials, two of our children had serious problems with depression and drugs, we had to have our teenage son locked up for 18 months, my wife had cancer, I had to close my business of over 20 years, and we lost our home.  All I can say is that it has only been through my faith in Christ and my surrendering continually to Him that He has sustained my family and myself, and has kept me sane as I nearly lost that too.

In 1992, while I was taking a shower I had a powerful vision of ‘who’ Jesus is that forever changed my relationship and walk with him…..

My Response

…. Nothing I have is my own. Praise the lord for your faith and testimony. Thank you for your email. If the crediting of my video leads people to the lord then place it on the site. Your email came at a great time in my life as the lord is moving and you are witness to that. You have felt great pain as life unfolded un-according to your plans. Job lost it all and praised god but that isn’t to say how strong job was but how strong god is. Later as you know job received twice as much or even more. Although you might not receive your reward for your faith in this life you will receive it in heaven. We soon shall join him at the throne. The devil has no power though there is darkness in my skin. The grace of god has freed us from the law of sin and the mosaic law through Jesus. The lord does not work in our understanding of time and saves our spirit for his kingdom while we are here. I don’t understand heaven but I believe it is there. I would be humbled to the point of death if I glimpsed at what is to come (for us who love Jesus). In my struggles I have begun praising god for those struggles I’m in. Like serving and loving our enemies I have, under the lords strength, begun to do so when considering my trials. All things can be used for the greater good for those who love Jesus. (Romans 8:28) Surrender to him like you told me about and I will do the same, encouraged by your faith. I have not been through what you have. I consider you in a place where you, like Paul, can boast in what you’ve been through because you have the ability through gods strength to claim Christ as your victory. Rescue is coming. We have already won. Don’t try and make sense of it all like there is an equation to be figured out. Christ is moving and it will look different. Again thank you for your email. I’m not sure what site you visited, my blog? All I have written you I pray for the same in my life and the lives of all the saints. Stephen

It seems Careless

You know each person searching after you. You know their steps because they are following in yours. Each person who is weary or downhearted, strengthen them. Step towards judgment, step towards peace. Insert title but see what a world can’t.

Two Masters? It is hard to narrow all that I serve to less than 9 so please Lord lessen me the 8 but with mercy and grace.

Alone I find you, my head toward heaven

looking towards others are the needs you prompt me to bare in burden.

If my voice may be heard across the world, will you carry it a message of yours alone.

In Paris with Pilot

With bank accounts more than empty caused by lavish hotel rooms and equal meals to suite any price range of suite, coffee twice a day and a San Francisco bay, travel expenses ate just as well for my three week shoot to China and now in this fall chill, -zero is forecasting the unpaid bill from not yet paid recent jobs will soon eat too. Recently home, I sit on the floor near my cat’s food box, empty, ripping up bread for her to eat, along with me. Neither of us have any money to buy the other anything of editable value so we feast like beggars on the streets of Paris, on a four course meal of the handout sourdough bread from Le’Gagnavalon. The granite rose, charcoal and tan stones that make up my kitchen’s floor help the Français de l’humeur.

I realized today that it could be likely that by chance I will never have a separation between social life and what others have called my passion. And that makes life a bit easier to navigate and I think that is so because instead of dividing which parts of existence go where and more importantly to some, when, everything seems to go together as it fits together. As it fits together, planned by the Hymn.

It is 530 am and simultaneously 5 videos in full 1440×1080 hd push a little blew bar of status as they upload fresh from the export chambers that rest in the depths of a late night fcp edit session. The videos will be seen by Congress week. Mr. Z.P, Genious Esquire was beside me, making my evening as a perfect assistant would, from 8 pm to 520 am helping any way he could. The original Pink Panther film played as the night went on.
5 Videos exported in two resolutions, color toned with audio fixed, all of that done today.
6am. Time for sleep, for just a little while.

Angelic chimes ping at seemingly random only narrate the joy of the completed movie files uploading to the internet.

A week of hard work can teach you that even a cat can get full on crumbs of simplicity and bread.

To Kill a Mocking CityBird

Welcome to my blog. I am a filmmaker and photographer. I currently have a head ache. I love Detroit, and well, now that my video is out, many Detroiter’s have expressed that they don’t love me or my video. Most people consider word choice more than meaning. Too few actually acquire the freedom to photograph. To photograph what comes along the way is to be living with a camera in hand. What am I but just another chamber of Detroit’s orchestra.  In my city, Shooting only adds to the music. Passing prophets for your purpose makes your works more than your meaning.

When you find your name on Michael Moore’s homepage, that is when you know you have done something polar. The Wall Street Journal purchased my content and my story on a dump truck that was hanging forever out of a fourth floor window at the Packard Plant and ran it front page in today’s paper. An editor told me it was the first time ever a photographer had pitched a story to the WSJ that they ran.  I am interested in telling my side of the story.

I just returned from doing a film series in China on the renewable energy sector to show to Congress/the Obama administration when I learned that this story was actually going to be in the WSJ. Not only in, but on the front page. If I didn’t have to edit all day tomorrow, I would tell you more about China, More about how I got to the actually film/photograph this dump truck event, and how my laptop with all my china work on it was stolen in SF today, only to be returned in 2 hours. Maybe more tomorrow.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125745924791631907.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel

PS. I am available for freelance work in Detroit/the world.

photographed race fight, police took my camera, erased images.

The police took my camera and erased an approx 15-20 images, none of which I believe could have been viewed as negative towards the police. I have 12 images  left and 2 videos. here are some of the images and the story. This story is a work in progress and will be updated as I have time. look to the comments for how advice was given by more veteran pros. I did not write all of this to complain but to inform others about how i was treated and more so as a news piece about what happened to these kids. They are the ones I really care about.

A newspaper in Hamtramck is doing a story on this and asked me for a reaction to the police response to my story. Here is what the police said not verbatim, “The camera was left in the car and we asked whose camera it was and the journalist said it was his and the other kids said it was theirs so we took it.”  Which is not what happened. The video with the arab kids ends with me leaving the car with my camera. I have the rest of the 10 minutes of footage on my computer which ends with the police driving with the camera on in the car. Read more under the video.

I am reviewing this legal form to see what my rights are. http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

Female student hiding and crying, in an ally way looking towards the street where the police were spraying, talking on phone.

done

Arab kids taunt police and later are detained. There are 10 more minutes in the video of the police ride that is not shown in this film. The camera was still recording which was not my objective as the police officer drove the kids to station.  In the video at 1:03  there is a moment when the police car arrives by the kids and I take a photo while in video mode. If you click the shutter release button while recording video with the Canon 5d Mark II the video will pause while the camera records the image. A shutter will sound too. I do not have this moment when I clicked the shutter. I should have a photograph of that moment, but the police erased it. Neighbors who watched this scene that I was in said that the police had sprayed all races equally and did not subject one more than another to the mace or interrogation.

done

Black students walking away from fight talk about the fights. Two of them didn’t want to be on camera but were ok audio taping. So I took frame grabs just for visual reference.

Hamtramck is a city within the city of Detroit and has 26 nations living in a very small area of two miles by two miles. It was a Polish majority to the point that Pope John Paul stopped by in his trip to America.  It is now a very dynamic town with many immigrants that I kind of see could resemble an early Ellis Island. I was at my church in Hamtramck and saw a fight forming across the street near the high school. (photo example-erased)

I ran with my camera to photograph. There was a large group of Arab kids walking in a very tight group, maybe 50 of them in total. I photographed that from afar (photo erased) and watched the police trail the group of kids away through side streets. I walked through some alleys and jumped a random fence after taking the photos shown above of the kids running. I interviewed a few black students walking away form the fight and then walked towards the police controlled intersection. I found a group of about 15 Arab (sorry for the generalization) students who had been maced. I introduced myself and told them who I had shot for in the past. The group of Arab kids were taunting the police officers before I arrived with curse words and yelling, and eventually the cops came by and sprayed us down with mace. The kids kept on saying one of my clients that I mentioned. The kids ran away when the cops came. The group split and some ran back to my position. The cops came over and sprayed the area again. I went in the car with the kids to follow the story but more to escape the crazy amount of mace in the air. The car hadn’t moved and the cops came up and got us out of the car. They took my camera immediately after I told them I was a photographer.  I was told to have my hands on the trunk. We were there for what seemed like 30 minutes as the cops yelled at the kids about respect and tried to cross interrogate them.  I told them that I was a freelancer they asked me who I had shot for and I told them. They then asked well if you shoot for them (citing examples of organizations i gave him) why don’t you have credentials? I told them as a freelancer I didn’t have credentials. I wasn’t carrying my NPPA card. Come to think of it I don’t think i have received that yet. The cop then told me that I need to get another day job if all i did was follow kids causing fights. I don’t think I will cite examples of whom I have worked next time I am asked in this type of situation. It was used more against me than I could have thought of.

I understand now that the choice to get into the car was not a wise one when the cops were around. Like I said, I thought it was the best choice at the time.  My hands were on car on the account that I was “guilty by association”. I don’t that that is a law. I wanted to ask, “Aren’t I innocent until proven guilty by association?” But I didn’t.

On the way to pick up my camera an hour later I ran into the mayor, the former chief of police and the superintendent campaigning in the streets. I did not know who they were when I asked them for directions. I told them my story and the mayor called the police without me asking her for the release of my camera. The former chief of police asked me my thoughts on how the police handled the situation and I told him my thoughts that were not negative. Then the superintendent asked me my thoughts and I told her that we live in a broken world that needs fixing.

I biked to get my camera at the police office. When I arrived the police officer behind the desk, who was not at the original scene, tried to reprimand me. He told me my 1st amendment rights were “Canceled” when I didn’t leave the scene when the cops told me to. Well the cops didn’t tell me to. “Its like calling fire in a crowded theater”, the police officer behind the counter said.

They gave me back my camera after 20 minutes. I biked to my church to continue a film I was making for my church. Turned on my camera and the screen popped up, “No Card”. I was like, “What the junk?” The cops had taken my card. The cops gave me the camera without the memory card in the camera. I should have checked at the station. I biked back and they said they didn’t know where it was and couldn’t find the memory card even though it had been there a few minutes ago with only a few police in the building. The main police officer behind the desk that I was working with couldn’t believe that someone had taken out the card after he, who was in charge, looked at the images. He was called into the back with a whisper from the police officer who originally took my camera. I did not see whom actually whispered but I assume it because he is the one who went into the back of the station to look for the card. Many times he repeated that he had no idea how to open the memory card compartment to take out a memory card. In his words, “I have no idea how to work them things.”

About 20 minutes later they said they found it in a cops pocket who was driving home to a suburb.  The officer behind the counter said it had been taken out of my camera in a mix up between shifts and that the officer with the memory card was on his way back and that he would arrive in 20 minutes. I found it quite strange that possible “supporting evidence” was in an off duty officers’ pocket on the way to his home.  1.5 hours later the police officer who originally took my camera, told me to get another day job, told me i was guilty by association, met me at my church down the road and handed me my card and said it was all his fault. I told him I forgave him. I reviewed the card to find the images of police and some of the arab kids had been erased and those images couldn’t be recovered by a software program. I am assuming that the police did not erase my 2 movies because they saw the first frame of the movie as a bad photograph.

Image cropped significantly to show a point in a scene when the cops sprayed mace on students near teachers.

Habib taunts the police because he and the other Arab kids in this crowd felt the police were racist. Later after I was released, the neighbors said the boys taunted too much. One neighbor commented that the cops were not spraying one race more than another.

There was a  fight between the black students and the arab students at the high school in Hamtramck last year that i was told was about 150 vs 150 students. In another fight over a bike, I tried to break it up by talking calmly between the two cultures and that time, love prevailed.

but for now, i am so frustrated because of the police stories not matching up about my memory card and since the images were erased without them telling me, I felt lied to. The most frustrating part is I am trying to tell stories that will change people. The more I am cut down by those who don’t want the truth to be told, the stronger the desire to fight for the provision and documentation of truth becomes in my heart.

I believe the police did what they thought was best at the time. It was very aggressive atmosphere. I did not ever lose my temper or raise my voice. I could understand why they took my camera, why my hands were on the trunk, why I was asked questions. I can not understand why they erased images and can not understand a few others things.

Personal thoughts; About my faith, I will say that it was strengthened today. God’s plans are bigger than me, bigger than my plans. The images are gone and I am safe. The way that things went down at the police station it seemed very likely that the police made a story up in front of me about where the card was. The fact remains that there are children tomorrow who feel they need to find security in their appearance and their status and that the eye for an eye judgment system is the main determining factor to fight or not to fight. I have not covered any wars and have only had my life threatened twice before. I have only been maced twice before. The scene wasn’t that crazy, it was more unexpected. It is my goal with truth and integrity to creatively achieve engaging storytelling.

Thank you to all journalists who have emailed me with advice for next time. I consider my work at the professional level, always allowing room for education to better my craft. Welcome photographers from http://pressefotografforbundet.dk/. Thank you for your interest in this story.

Journalists-Spread the truth.

frame grab of cops taking a young arab kid into the police car.

I unfortunately wrote over the card because I was on deadline for another assignment and had to use the card. I did not use much of the 16gb card but later went back and tried to recover the files and they were already written over. Everything happened really fast and it was a very tough decision but I had to use the card.  Recovering the files through software did not occur to me quick enough.

from the National Press Photographers Association..

My understanding (and again, you want a lawyer to give you proper legal advice relating to your situation) If police take someone into custody, they have a right to take a camera for safekeeping. There may also be limited rights if they had probable cause to believe that it had evidence of a crime. But they do not, under any circumstances, have a right to delete images, or to demand the deletion of images. In fact, that could be viewed as destroying evidence. Destroying evidence can lead to a presumption against the party that destroyed the evidence.

In fact, you might find out if any of the kids were arrested. If so, be sure to tell their lawyers that the police deleted images which may have contained evidence that would prove or disprove wrongdoing. Having their case affected is the primary way that police officers are encouraged to stay in line.

You should also consider filing a complaint with the police department. They might not have a policy relating to handling of cameras and digital images. If they don’t, this incident is evidence that one is needed. Use your connections with the mayor and others to encourage such a policy.

The list of my images with images missing. I did not do any in the field editing. The images should have started around 3110 and gone up to around 3140.